Officer Jim Chee hears the distressed calls of Delbert Nez crackle over his radio but arrives too late to avert his friend's death. Injuring himself in an attempt to save Nez, Chee began a frantic search for the killer, driving right into the path of a drunken, gun-wielding Ashie Pinto.

A member of the Saulteaux tribe from Manitoba, Canada, Adam Beach recently starred opposite Nicolas Cage in John Woo's World War II epic Windtalkers, about Navajo Marines who used a code based on their complex native language to send messages undecipherable to the Japanese. In 1998 Beach appeared in Chris Eyre's critically acclaimed Smoke Signals. He has also starred in Squanto for Disney Studios and Dance Me Outside, which earned him a Best Actor award from the American Indian Film Festival. On television, he has appeared in Cowboys and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, Lonesome Dove; Walker, Texas Ranger; The Rez; and many other series. Audiences will next see Beach in the thriller Sawtooth and the indie The Big Empty, alongside Jon Favreau, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Daryl Hannah.

In Hillerman's words: [Leaphorn] studied Chee over the rim of the cup. Odd young man. Good looking in a way, with the sort of long, sensitive face women seemed to like. A fairly good cop, excellent in some categories, weak in others. He remembered that Largo had tried him out as an acting sergeant once. It hadn't lasted long for some reason he had forgotten or, more likely, never known. But he could guess the reason. Chee wasn't an organization man. He was a loner. Liked to freelance. A man who worked inside the system only until the system interfered. One of those who marched to his private drummer. This business of trying to be a hataalii and a policeman at the same time, for example. It wasn't just impractical. How the hell could a cop get time off at the drop of a hat for a nine-day sing? It was incongruous. It was like being an investment banker and a Catholic priest at the same time. Or a rabbi and a clown. People wouldn't accept it.

Coyote Waits, Chapter 15